Woman who planted gun in Magnolia ISD student's backpack released from prison

Brandon K. Scott

Published 5:01 am, Wednesday, March 4, 2015

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Hodges

Woman who planted gun in Magnolia ISD student's backpack released from prison

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A woman who was sentenced last October by a Montgomery County district court judge to three years in prison for planting a gun inside a junior high school student’s backpack and anonymously reporting him to the school was released Monday and ordered to serve a seven-year probation sentence instead.

Heather Hodges, now 29, was granted shock probation, which is designed to introduce young offenders to the long-term realities of a criminal career through a short-term visit to prison.

Judge Kelly Case handed down a three-year prison sentence Oct. 30, 2014, after Hodges pleaded guilty to unlawful carrying of a weapon on restricted premises in exchange for the dismissal of two lesser charges.

Hodges was held at the Lucile Plane state jail in Dayton for only three weeks, from Jan. 28 to Feb. 18. Prior to being sent to the Dayton facility, she was at the Montgomery County Jail since her Oct. 30 sentencing.

Hodges, who was the live-in girlfriend of the boy’s father as they struggled to blend families, wanted to teach 13-year-old James Bailey McKeegan a lesson for what she considered to be the mistreatment of her own children, ages seven and four at the time.

So she took her boyfriend’s 9-millimeter Smith and Wesson handgun, replaced the child’s cologne and deodorant in his backpack, and then called Magnolia Junior High School from a nearby payphone to report him by name.

District Court Judge Kelly Case at the time echoed lead prosecutor Vince Santini’s statement that Hodges was “evil,” and said he thought it was ironic how Hodges’ motivation was wanting to protect her children.

McKeegan was eventually taken from school to the Montgomery County’s juvenile detention facility until Hodges confessed days later, after multiple interviews with investigators.

He no longer lives with his father David McKeegan and has since moved to Louisiana to live with his mother.

Defense attorney Corey Young argued for shock probation as a way to advance the court’s goals of using the criminal justice system as a rehabilitative tool and that Hodges could be more effectively rehabilitated if monitored through probation rather than continuing to serve her prison sentence.

In an affidavit to support the motion for shock probation, Hodges wrote that the crimes she committed resulted from “terrible, irrational, and selfish decision making under unique circumstances.”

“I look back now at what I did and am disgusted by it,” Hodges said. “I have too much at stake to ever do anything like that again, and I know going forward that I will be like I was before I committed those crimes: a law-abiding citizen.”

David McKeegan, however, said Hodges getting released is an example of a messed up criminal justice system.

McKeegan, who was unable to attend Monday’s court setting, said he would like to know why the judge changed his mind on the sentencing, “especially since he brought his own personal life into the courtroom about his relationship with his son and how it angered him that she tried to come in between myself and Bailey — that she was such an evil person he said, even pausing to compose himself when he spoke about it.”

“It does sting, especially for me to have to explain to my kids how someone did something to this degree, to only be let out of prison because she has a support system,” McKeegan said. “She was compliant while on bond because she didn’t want the charges to stick. She showed no remorse in what she did and she thought she could beat the charges.”

Retired Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office investigator Mike Price, who interrogated Hodges at the time of the November 2012 incident, called the crime “unthinkable” when he testified last October for sentencing.

Investigators tracked the phone call and could place Hodges’ vehicle at the location with the time the call was made. The voice in the anonymous call also clearly matched Hodges’ in the tape-recorded interview with police.

Price said it was not the typical way a gun is found on the premise of a school, and coupled with Bailey McKeegan insisting his father’s girlfriend must have framed him, it all made investigators suspicious.

“It took the District Attorney’s Office a couple of days to do some research to determine what charges to file, because none of us had ever heard of anything like this taking place before. I’ve never seen it, talked to anybody who’s heard of it. It’s very unusual and very unique,” Price said.

“Unthinkable.”

Santini said he believed Judge Case made the correct ruling initially and noted that Hodges did not suffer from any substance abuse or mental issues, showing thoughtful premeditation.

Hodges was already on a preferred probation sentence for theft when she picked up unlawful carrying of firearm charge.

“We were arguing that prison would teach somebody a lesson more than probation will,” Santini said. “You can rehabilitate somebody, you can punish somebody and you can prevent these crimes from happening again. There’s nothing (for Hodges) to rehabilitate around. Nothing. This was case where we didn’t even know how to charge it for a while because it was so unthinkable.”